


Silver Lining

by aquabelacqua



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alley Blow Jobs, Alley Sex, Awesome Sally Donovan, BAMF John, BAMF John Watson, Blow Jobs, Coat Kink, Drinking, Drinking to Cope, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, I Don't Even Know, Jealous John, Jealous John Watson, Jealousy, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, M/M, POV John Watson, Pub Sex, Public Blow Jobs, Secret Relationship, Semi-Public Sex, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock's Coat, Thank God For My Betas, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Trevor's Coat, Victor Trevor Being an Asshole, What The Fuck Am I Even Writing Anymore, Who are Goddesses, someone take the keyboard away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 21:18:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13062342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquabelacqua/pseuds/aquabelacqua
Summary: This is the 3rd/final giveaway fic that I promised my friend, @semi_charmed_life, back in June...of 2016. *Ugh*Her amazing prompt was, unfortunately, too long to post in this summary but she supplied a TL;DR, which goes something like: "Secret but established Johnlock. John is jealous of Sherlock's pretend relationship with Victor and Sherlock does small little things to let John know that he loves him."I hope this suffices, darling!Thank you to my incredible, talented betas: @Silvergirl and @besina. I love you to the moon and back <3





	Silver Lining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semi_charmed_life](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semi_charmed_life/gifts).



The bottom fell out of John Watson’s world while he was sitting outside the loo at Gerrard’s pub in North London. He was on the floor of all places, and the arse of his jeans was wet from beer and slush—piss, too, probably; the wood floor reeked of it—and he was only half-drunk but all-the-way upset and his boyfriend was five seconds away from snogging another man in the bright, crowded bar in front of Scotland Yard and John was just... _done_.

The pub smelt awful—the stench was nauseating—but John swallowed against the rising bile. He was not going to fucking puke on top of the rest of this humiliation. As soon as he could get up off the floor, he was going to slink out the side door and find a cab and ride it to the edge of the city and then just disappear. Into what, he didn’t know. The city itself, maybe, its anonymous grip strangling the personhood out of him. He just wanted to be _gone_. And he would be, just as soon as he could—

 _Fuck_. But of _course_ his hand would slip in the slush and now he was literally elbow deep in it, a patch on the worn fabric of his jacket darkening like a bloodstain. John covered his face with trembling fingers, not caring that boozy, pissy, stinking grime was coating his lashes, sticking them together. Though drunk, he still had his wits about him. He was as close to laughing as he was to crying but it was a near thing. He needed to get up, get out, and soon.

*******************

Three weeks ago, they’d taken on a case with Sherlock’s ex-boyfriend at the centre of it and since then, everything John had thought stable was pitching back and forth like a balsa wood raft on the high seas.

They hadn’t known Victor would play a part when they took on the case—at least, John didn’t _think_ Sherlock knew; he was spiraling too hard to ask the proper questions at the moment—but there was no going back now that the Yard had signed off on Sherlock even being there after the last case with the fire and the missing keys and the botched kidnapping and the near-asphyxiation.

Since then, John had been learning the true meaning of _stiff upper lip_. (Which was disappointing since he’d been so looking forward to learning about _other things stiff_ where Sherlock was concerned and, hell, he and Sherlock had barely done more than snog and grope for three months—all of which was more than good; it was fantastic, really—but John had been hoping for more.)

And now this case—that other bloke—was distracting them both and he couldn’t help thinking he’d love to fuck up Sherlock’s impressive solve rate by just shoving Victor Trevor into the Thames, bespoke coat and all.

Because of course—oh, yes—in addition to being everything else John knew he wasn’t—tall, posh, well-spoken, subtle, classically handsome, long-fingered—GOD, he really needed to stop cataloging this before he lost his mind—Victor also had a beautiful light grey woolen coat. One that almost put Sherlock’s Belstaff to shame.

John had gotten eyefuls aplenty of that coat in action, too, thanks much: swirling about Victor’s boot-clad ankles, the dove-coloured collar framing Victor’s caramel skin. John was used to admiring beautiful men with the complex subtlety of the near-closeted, not reacting openly with dagger eyes and murderous thoughts. This was new.

Then again, so was his relationship— _this_ relationship—with Sherlock. And as much as John wanted to let himself tumble into the wicked, familiar embrace of jealousy, they had risked too much in becoming a couple to let any monsters—green-eyed or otherwise—tear them apart.

 _But it was hard_ , his inner self whined, vulnerable and raw. Part of the case required Victor and Sherlock to pretend to be together— _What a ridiculous trope_ , John thought with an eye-roll—and they were both a little too skilled at method acting for John’s tastes. They even looked the part of a couple: two tall, thin, exquisite men, Victor as lovely and dark as Sherlock was incandescent and light, both clad in beautiful tailored clothing that had obviously come from one of those boutiques with a single name on the brass plate outside the otherwise innocuous door. _Stefano_ , John thought to himself. _Antoine_. He bit down to suppress a giggle.

John tried to be fair. He knew Sherlock was trying—and God, he loved him all the more for those efforts. Every chance he got, Sherlock brushed John with feather-light strokes—his shoulder, his arm, his hand. Once, even, his bum. John had nearly chewed the inside of his cheek all the way through trying to keep from grinning at that mischievous little gesture. But despite the number of meaningful glances, riptide touches, and subtle gestures they shared, John ached with the pressure of keeping this secret and watching, from the outside, as his boyfriend played out all of his long-held fantasies with another man. No, as long as Sherlock was committed to the part, so was he. To Sherlock, the work always came first and if that John meant swallowing down the better part of three weeks’ worth of furious depression so that Sherlock could solve this case and return to his arms, so be it.

*******************

Which is how, one hour ago, John had found himself crammed in between Sergeant Sally Donovan and a burly Yarder with curry sauce smeared in his beard named Corrigan, watching an indelicate interplay between Victor and Sherlock as if he were merely a bystander.

“And THAT,” Victor had said in his booming, box office voice, oozing sensuality and smarm in equal measure, “Is when I wrested the phone away from Mercanto. And when Sherlock flew in, limbs pinwheeling—

” “I wouldn’t say—” Sherlock had begun.

“Limbs _pinwheeling_ ,” Victor had insisted, pressing his long fingers into Sherlock’s chest to quiet him. Sherlock had looked down at Victor’s hand as if uncertain how, precisely, the knuckle bone connected to the wrist bone, and John clenched his left hand hard enough to sting. “And managed to knock the phone into the river _and_ kick Mercanto unconscious,” Victor had continued. “A doubly impressive feat, really.” Sherlock had said nothing, had simply gazed out across the bar as if spying something deduction-worthy tucked beneath the dartboard.

John had felt the bodies on either side fold him inward, accordion-style, as they turned to smirk at each other. He’d flared with anger on Sherlock’s behalf briefly before settling back into numb passivity. He had been exposed to these moments more and more often as the weeks had progressed; that night’s had simply been the most public declaration of abject ownership Victor had made toward his boyfriend, to date.

When Donovan and Corrigan had pulled away again, John had still felt like his lungs were compressed. Perhaps he wasn’t as inured to his and Sherlock’s situation as he’d thought; he had been fairly certain that the pressure in his chest was coming from the external stimuli of watching this tall, handsome bloke turn his boyfriend into a toy, a trophy, and a bit of a laughing stock all at once.

John Watson had never wanted to lay claim to another human being as desperately and as publicly as he did at that moment. Not to show up Victor, not to out them both in front of their friends-slash-erstwhile employers, but to show Sherlock that he was loved, wanted, claimed. For all of John’s history of pining and insecurity when it came to loving Sherlock, now that he openly did, at least between the two of them, he was proud of it, and he wanted Sherlock to know he was confident in it, in _them_.

*******************

A subtle throat clearing. When John peered between his fingers, Sally Donovan was standing above him with a hand out, slim and strong and...welcome.

“On your feet, soldier,” she said and John was upright with a grunt and a heave and only one embarrassing foot-slide.

“Thanks, Sergeant—ahh, Sally,” John managed.” I was just—”

“Yeah whinging and pissing about, I know,” she said, not nastily, and John almost smiled. “Go collect your boyfriend before he loses his tonsils _and_ his virginity to that posh snot.”

“He’s not...he isn’t…” John sputtered, unsure which accusation he should attack first. Then shoulders slumped. “He doesn’t look too miserable about it either way,” he muttered.

Sally scoffed. Jesus, she scoffed well. John could feel the force of it pushing back his self-pity and filling the newly empty space with disdain. He straightened his shoulders under her frank gaze and felt the beginnings of sobriety whisper in his ear.

“I was actually thinking about letting him try and disentangle himself from that mess,” he said and felt buoyed by Sally’s wicked grin.

“God, as much as I’d love to witness that absolute disaster, I’m not that cruel.”

“Yeah you are,” John said, smiling for real now.

“Yeah, I am,” she agreed. “But you should go get him anyway. I honestly think that Victor bloke would bum him right there on the bar, given half a chance.” She faux-shuddered before pushing John forward with those sharp, jabbing fingers.

When John approached the bar, Sherlock was standing by Lestrade, solemnly twisting around an ice-filled glass of something amber and evil-looking. Victor was nowhere to be found. Lestrade seemed to be complimenting Sherlock—he alternated between slinging an arm around Sherlock’s neck, which Sherlock accepted with a minimum of ugly rictus mouth, and punching Sherlock lightly on the upper arm, which made Sherlock’s face turn vaguely Thatcheresque. Lestrade did not seem to notice either way.

John used his acute Sherlock-sense to assess the situation. He may not be a genius detective but he knew a thing or two about how to read one, and his reading of the current situation was that Sherlock was uncomfortable but not miserable.

Which was all John needed to know as he continued to scan… _Ah_. There he was. Victor Trevor, tall and lithe, striding off to the loo, his perfect head with its perfect hair and its perfectly smug expression bobbing above the commoners’ heads like a king amongst his subjects. If Victor elbow-waved, John was going to mount the bar and catapult himself into Victor’s perfect face and knock his perfect teeth down his throat.

As it was, he caught up with Victor just before the heavy wooden door—“Gents” scrawled in thick black script, just starting to chip away—closed behind him. John wedged his hand between the door and doorframe, then slid into the single-occupancy room, his short but broad form taking up most of the remaining space. Victor spun around, his cashmere coat settling around him like water, a frown etched into his flawless features, making him look both stern and bored. Perfect. John grinned at him.

“Hullo, Victor,” he said easily.

*******************

The wind was bracing but John didn’t mind. Between his cider swagger and the warmth of wool swaddling his shoulders, he was perfectly suited to the cold.

When he swung open the staff exit door on the east side of Gerrard’s, a bank of skips blocked his immediate view but he knew Sherlock was already waiting for him, even though he’d just sent the text a minute ago. A small plume of smoke rose and swirled above the last skip in the row and disappeared into the crisp air while John rounded the bend. Sherlock immediately threw his cigarette, only a quarter smoked, under the toe of his boot, grinding it into the slush with a small, savage movement. When Sherlock looked up again his eyes widened perceptibly at the sight of him—at how cleverly John was keeping himself warm in February—and John had to bite back his glee. To his credit, Sherlock said nothing, even when John walked up to stand directly in his space, crowding him back against the cold brick wall of the pub.

“Hey, love,” John said pleasantly.

“John.” Sherlock’s voice was guarded. “Where did y—”

But John cut him off by pressing his lips to Sherlock’s mouth, filling Sherlock’s air with the scent of cider and chips and breathing in Sherlock’s smoky exhale. Sherlock didn’t make a noise, exactly. He simply shifted the molecules around his breath, making them hum almost imperceptibly against the thin, firm line of John’s mouth. John filed that away as a whimper and pressed him more tightly against the bricks. As Sherlock’s not-noise lifted in scale, John prised his mouth apart with his tongue, licking the inside of his upper lip and sucking it into his mouth. He bit down gently and then, as Sherlock began to relax into the kiss, not as gently, and John felt Sherlock wobble against the wall behind him.

John pulled back, just enough to slide a hand in between the open folds of Sherlock’s heavy wool coat, and pressed his fingers into Sherlock’s chest, a smug nod to Victor’s earlier, possessive handling. The pressure of John’s blunt, forceful touch said, “Mine.” And to John’s delight, Sherlock pressed back, leaning his chest into the gesture and matching the pressure of John’s lips. They bowed into each other, all the carefulness of their initial encounters dissolving in the heat between them and the chill around them.

John knew he should be distracted by the sounds of nearby traffic—they were only a few meters away from the main road—but the sound of Sherlock’s breath, quiet but ragged, stormed into his eardrums and blocked out all other ambient noise, His heart raced to keep up and his blood flowed faster, rushing to his tongue, the tips of his ears, his cock. He pressed into Sherlock and Sherlock, feeling him taut against his slim thigh, moaned aloud and John pulled back immediately.

“John.” It was not a question but John shook his head anyway. He began to peel off his outermost layer, too flushed to feel the chill, February winds.

“Where did you get that coat?” Sherlock continued, between airy gasps.

John looked at him directly, swinging the dove grey cashmere coat from his shoulders like a bullfighter’s cape.

“You know where I got it.”

“I meant, ‘how’?”

“Shut up, Sherlock.”

John threw Victor’s coat to the ground, satin lining skyward, grinding the soft, light wool into the slush and grime of the back alley with angry feet. He smiled at Sherlock while he screwed the toe of his boot into the fabric, rendering it unsalvageable. Sherlock stared at him with owl eyes. John rolled his head on his neck once, twice, and then sank to his knees in front of Sherlock, running his hands up the front of Sherlock’s thighs while he buried his knees in slippery, satiny lining.

Sherlock’s eyes looked almost black in the dim light of the alley and John liked to imagine it was desire bleeding out the grey-blue-silver and replacing it with ink. What little illumination there was reflected off the silver lining of Victor’s coat, shining wetly in the mud-tinged slush. John leaned forward, hands gripping Sherlock’s legs just above each knee, and gazed at his boyfriend placidly.

“Thought you might have forgotten about me,” John said simply, squeezing Sherlock’s thighs gently. Sherlock shook his head from side to side, his curls bouncing off his ears with each pass of his head. “You and Victor looked pretty cozy,” he continued, taking a small, sick pleasure in the upset arch of Sherlock’s eyebrows before internally admonishing himself. It wasn’t Sherlock’s fault, after all. It was work and the work came first. But in John’s world—in his fantasy world, anyway—the work came second. Sherlock always, _always_ came first.

John leaned forward even more, pressing himself between Sherlock’s legs and placing his mouth against the rather prominent bulge in Sherlock’s trousers. He breathed out wetly, letting the heat from his mouth warm the wool at Sherlock’s groin and he closed his eyes as Sherlock’s hands reached down and wound into the short hair at the nape of John’s neck. They stood like that for a moment, John pressed obscenely into Sherlock’s crotch, Sherlock stroking John’s hair like a bedtime ritual. Then John broke the spell, reaching up to unzip Sherlock’s flies, folding aside wool and cotton to find the silk of Sherlock’s bare skin, warm and flushed. John had barely touched him and already Sherlock was beginning to leak, the scent acrid and powerful in the thin, cold air. John ground his knees into the plush coat beneath him, determined somehow that whatever shared or recycled energy made up this coat—John sent furious apologies to the cosmos for this admission—would somehow transmit their shared desire to its former owner, that somehow Victor would know that the man he desired and the man John loved was about to lose his fucking mind in the back alley of a North London pub thanks to John’s talented mouth.

“John.” He said it a third time. This time, the single word was all emotions at once: warning, desire, curiosity, shame, love, humor. John used it as fuel, used it to propel himself forward even further, nosing apart Sherlock’s flies and licking the broadside of Sherlock’s exposed cock. Sherlock’s knees wobbled at once, and John pressed him harder against the wall, not caring if the rough brick was bruising Sherlock’s coccyx. He wanted Sherlock to feel this now and remember it tomorrow, and the next day and the next. There was only one chance for a first time and John wanted this to be etched into Sherlock’s memory forever.

John stroked his dominant hand up Sherlock’s thigh and into the V of his trousers, freeing Sherlock’s cock gently from his pants and shirttails. Sherlock did not appear to be shocked by the cold air on his exposed skin—or at least he didn’t seem to mind. He pushed his hips away from the wall and John followed the motion of Sherlock’s bobbing cock with his lips, pressing the bud of his mouth against the head and taking in every nuance of Sherlock’s moan as he pressed down and took Sherlock against the back of his tongue.

John had never heard a note as deep as the groan that escaped Sherlock’s throat at the first hint of suction. He was more encouraged by that single, wordless noise than he had ever been in any previous lovemaking experience. He pressed his right palm flat against Sherlock’s bowing hip to steady him and used the hand wrapped around Sherlock’s cock to work a tight, steady rhythm.

John risked opening his eyes only twice. The sight of Sherlock with his shoulders pressed against the brick but his hips pressed forward, his cheeks flushed and his mouth open, panting was almost more than he could bear. John’s mouth was so flooded with saliva that moisture drooled out the side of his lips and trickled down his chin. He used the excess to keep the arc of his hand slick, making sure that the last piece of skin Sherlock felt before pressing into John’s mouth was saturated with wetness, gliding him into the suction of John’s lips and the strong softness of his tongue.

He felt something reverberating against the roof of his mouth and realized with a start that it was his own involuntary moaning, vibrating around the width of Sherlock’s cock and humming in time to their rhythm. John had never been more turned on in his life. His knees were slipping against the satin of Trevor’s coat lining and more than once he had to steady himself against Sherlock—Sherlock, who was bucking so hard off the wall, he almost knocked the both of them down. It was messy and ridiculous and unflinchingly intimate and John would have happily died in that moment.

It was over far too soon. John applied even stronger pressure with his tongue the exact moment he snaked his other hand into Sherlock’s pants and began to stroke him with two hands and Sherlock exploded, his hands digging in to John’s scalp hard enough to sting, his shouts higher and louder in pitch than John would have imagined. John rode through the climax with him, pressing his body against Sherlock’s knees and knocking them both into the wall. Sherlock came so unexpectedly and so hard that John felt his sinuses burn and he broke off sputtering, eyes watering, and his heart light with joy and desire. He leaned his cheek against Sherlock’s shuddering thighs and panted into his skin. Sherlock slowly loosened his grip on John’s scalp and gently stroked the damp hair away from John’s forehead. They breathed into one another for a moment and then Sherlock reached down to fumble up his trousers, his knees knocking together comically. John winced as he got up from his knees; Victor’s coat was gorgeous— _had been_ gorgeous, anyway—but was not as thick as Sherlock’s Belstaff (John was sure there was another smug comparison in there somewhere) and he knew he’d be feeling the ache in his meniscus for weeks to come.

 _Worth it_ , he thought, and Sherlock grinned at him weakly. John laughed out loud at how easily Sherlock had deduced his thoughts.

“Would you like to read my mind for real, love?” John said with a smile. Sherlock’s voice was a rough purr. “I’m yours and only yours and all others be damned?” he said.

“Well done, yes.” John nodded.

“I’m quite certain no one doubts that. Not anymore,” Sherlock said. John frowned. Would Sally be crude enough to out them to everyone? He’d thought not. Sherlock, his face damp and flushed, nodded to the staff door that John had exited earlier, now propped wide open with a stout wedge of wood, presumably by some enterprising employee, the hot pub air curling into puffs of smoke where it hit the February chill. How many people had exited through that door or had poked their head out while he and Sherlock were entangled?

How many people had heard Sherlock’s shouts and John’s muffled moans commingling in the night? John felt a jolt of embarrassment. He buried his face in Sherlock’s wool-clad shoulder for a moment—just until the worst of the emotion passed—and then looked back at Sherlock, the cold air soothing his burning cheeks. Sherlock pursed his lips to keep his own smile at bay and then shook his head back and forth against the bricks.

“Incorrigible,” Sherlock said. John lifted his chin. “You like it,” he challenged, and Sherlock nodded and leaned forward to kiss him gently. “Let’s go home,” Sherlock said and John reached down to take Sherlock’s hand firmly in his.

They started to walk out of the alley, toward the street. Before they reached the road, Sherlock paused and dropped John’s hand. He trotted back into the dark corner where’d they’d been intertwined and whisked Victor’s ruined coat from the ground. John frowned a little. Sherlock walked back nonchalantly, letting the hem of the coat drag through the grime and the slush. When he reached John, he swung the coat around John’s shoulders like a toreador, the coat flaring out and whipping drops of wet and filth into the air. John stood up proudly, readjusted the coat across his body, and then took Sherlock’s hand again. Without discussion, they veered from their path to the open road and, instead, made their way back toward the open side entrance to the pub

Together, they walked back into Gerrard’s to say their goodnights.

**Author's Note:**

> So.....THAT happened. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and - hopefully - enjoying. I was pretty steamrolled by S4, as many of you know, so just dipping my toe back in the waters of fandom feels weird, good, scary, validating, and like a goddamned revolutionary act. 
> 
> Tabula rasa, mofos. S4 is dead to me. Long live the Sherlock fandom, remixing and reclaiming what's ours. Thank you for letting me play in the sandbox.


End file.
